


Studies of Normality in Modern Men's Fashion

by Palgrave (goldenrod)



Category: Community
Genre: Gen, Humor, Male Friendship, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:10:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenrod/pseuds/Palgrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeff learns that there's one thing worse than Troy and Abed acting weird. And that's Troy and Abed acting normal. (Missing scene from "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Studies of Normality in Modern Men's Fashion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blithers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/gifts).



> My fifth entry for the community-tv Summer School Fic Battle. Thanks to **blithers** for the prompt ('Jeff takes Troy and Abed shopping for suits to wear to Shirley's wedding.'), and I hope it satisfies!
> 
> As ever, comments, feedback and use of the 'kudos' button welcome and gratefully received! Enjoy!

“Something in grey, I think, my average friend,” Abed purred.

“It is a normal colour,” Troy agreed.

“ _The_ normal colour.”

“Indeed. Although black is also, I think, a suitably normal colour for our normal purposes.”

“An insightful observation, my garden-variety fellow.”

“Thank you, my equally mundane companion.”

Jeff pinched the bridge of his noise irritably. “Okay, guys. What the hell’s going on?”

He’d known it would be annoying. He’d known that taking Troy and Abed to buy grown-up suits for a grown-up occasion would not be the easiest thing he’d ever done. And yeah, okay, it was kind of nice to share doing something he enjoyed with his friends and he was kind of flattered that they’d actively sought out his opinion on the best things they could wear to Shirley’s wedding. But Jeff had expected that taking Troy and Abed clothes-shopping would also, to a degree, be like getting teeth pulled.

He’d just expected a different _kind_ of getting teeth pulled. Jeff had expected having to wrestle them away from bowler hats and tuxedos and bow-ties and cravats and all sorts of things they’d only seen people wear on TV shows. This was just... unsettling. They were walking around with smug smirks emphasizing how mundane everything was. They hadn’t referenced a single movie. He’d been expecting wacky-annoying, and they were giving him creepy-annoying.

It was like they’d been replaced by pod people. And that in itself was a sign of how bad things were getting -- Jeff was finding himself doing pop-culture references to compensate.

“We’re normal, now,” Abed replied, as if that expected everything.

“Normal.”

“Quite so.”

"This is you guys... being normal.”

Troy chuckled slightly in a ‘oh heavens, I’m such a silly goose’ fashion. “He doesn’t know, my dear fellow.”

“Of course not he doesn’t; what an unforgivably non-normal oversight of me. We purged the weirdness from our systems, my friend. For Shirley’s wedding. After all,” Abed chuckled, “we could hardly attend such a prestigious occasion and embarrass her by doing something... weird.” He shuddered, exaggeratedly.

Jeff tried to process what he was hearing.

“Okay, is this a prank of some kind?” he eventually asked. “Are you guys punking me? Are you gonna be going into the changing rooms and jumping out in _Star Trek_ costumes or something? I just ask, you understand, because it’s really hard to tell when you talk like that if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

“We’re not being sarcastic,” Troy chuckled, in a fashion that sounded incredibly sarcastic. “And I have to admit, Jeff, I’m shocked that you’d think we’d try something like that on an occasion such as Shirley’s wedding. It would be terribly improper.”

Abed clucked disapprovingly. Jeff reminded himself that it was either this or go back to trying to write his speech for Shirley, and staring at the blank piece of paper that was his speech, and trying to battle to get something vaguely positive to say about such a pointless, ridiculous and pathetic institution that was totally beneath him and that he didn’t care about in any way whatsoever (daddy left mommy and didn’t love you _shut up and die voice_ ).

“Perhaps,” Abed said, “we should leave Jeff to control himself and these unusual and eccentric urges he seems to have developed and go look at some ties.”

“What a very appropriate and middle-of-the-road suggestion,” Troy replied. “After you, my typical friend.”

“Thank you, my non-eccentric friend.”

“You’re quite welcome, my mainstream friend.”

Jeff incredulously watched the two of them disappear into the racks, still parroting various synonyms of ‘normal’ back at each other.

“Am I going insane?” he wondered out loud.

 

*

 

Later, after several hours, an ungodly amount of alcohol and a disastrous wedding rehearsal which had somehow turned into a very successful wedding, Jeff blearily looked over to Troy and Abed as they played _Inspector Spacetime_ with Shirley’s kids and a gaggle of her nephews and nieces.

“That’s more like it,” he slurred approvingly, and if he was happy to see things back to abnormality it was purely the liquor speaking.


End file.
